Unisaw Rehab

I look at CL pretty often, trying to be frugal in equipping my shop with good tools while keeping the home budget in mind. I spotted a Unisaw posted on CL about a week ago and posted it for my fellow LJs to consider. I wasn’t really looking for a second table saw since I already have a Craftsman 113 series saw as a regular user (got that one for free!). I did rethink getting the Unisaw later—my wife and I are planning to do some home improvement work on the home where I grew up...

I made a bit of progress today. I removed both of the cast iron wings and spent a little quality time with one of them. After scraping the bulk of the nastiness with a metal scraper, I used 400 grit sandpaper with mineral spirits to clean the gunk and rust off the top and sides. I consider this a preliminary cleaning, since I’d like to get a shinier finish on the top and wings.
I did check the main top and the two wings for flatness, and they are pretty flat considering that t...

My wife helped me unload the saw from the truck and walk it into the shop. We left it just outside the shop so the sawdust would fall outside—I certainly don’t need more sawdust in the shop!
Using the air compressor, I blew off all the obvious vintage sawdust from the mechanism.
Here’s a before and after comparison:
Before
After
EDIT: I pulled off the belts. Don’t think I’ll try to save these!
I removed the arbor assembly, inte...

I did steal a bit of shop time this morning before we head out for a few days. I had time to prime the saw cabinet. When we get back, I’ll lightly sand the primer coat and then put at least a couple of coats of finish color on it.
Here’s what it looks light right now:
See y’all in a few days . . .

I spent a bit of time this afternoon cleaning and sanding the cast iron top and wings. I’m still not ready to declare this phase complete, but I’m satisfied with the progress.
Sanded the top by hand with 80 grit, then used the ROS with 120 grit. I assembled the wings to the top to check how flat the assembly would be. It’s a bit off, but one bolt on each wing is stripped. Hopefully I can find replacements locally. I expect that I’ll be able to get it flatte...

Short update on the Unisaw Rehab project.
Picked up a matched set of belts for the Unisaw today.
They are Jason A26 (4L280) belts.
Ran some steel wool over the primer coat, blew and wiped it off, then applied one coat of Rustoleum Smoke Gray rattle can. My preference was for Machine Gray, but that was not available. Note that I did not paint the internal mechanism.
Plan for tomorrow is to polish up the hand wheels. I picked up some metal and aluminum polish today. ...

Made some more progress today. I lightly sanded down the first spray finish coat and applied a second coat—looks pretty smooth.
I put the top and wings face down on my workbench and attached the wings to the top. I carried the top (don’t think I have a hernia—yet) and laid it gently on the base. After putting the bolts attaching the top to the base finger tight, I mounted a 10”, 72 tooth blade on the arbor and aligned the miter slots to the saw blade with a c...

Thanks to the kindness of a fellow LJ, cpd011, I got some more parts delivered today. I am seeing the UPS guy more and more often, and I like it!
I got the front and rear rails and mounting hardware, and the blade guard with mount for the cost of shipping. I did have to agree to pass them on to the next person for only the cost of shipping, which I did agree to do.
The rails are in much better shape than the ones that came with my Unisaw. There was no blade guard.
I also picke...

I got back on the Unisaw rehab today. It was pretty hot in the shop, so I had to keep a towel handy to keep sweat off the cast iron. Weather guy tells me that the high temperature today was around 94F with humidity in the 80% area. Not a real surprise for south Louisiana in September though.
I realized that I had not painted the edges of the cast iron top, so I removed them (with my wife’s help) and set the assembled top on my workbench. I flipped it over and removed the wings. ...

The new paint on the wings is dry and the saw is ready for reassembly (again). I installed the wings, the blade guard, fence rails and fence this morning. I did a short video of a through cut on a strip of 3/4” plywood but I’m not having any success posting it (yet).
I noted in an earlier blog comment that the tip of the 10” blade, even at its lowest, it still above the top of the insert. This cut shows the height of the blade as a very small dado in 3/4” ply...